Please
by Ithinkyoullknxw
Summary: "I need you to hold all of the sadness I cannot live with inside of me."
1. Chapter 1

She's lost count of the amount of times she has filled up her glass. That's always been her problem, she tells herself if she doesn't let the glass empty then she hasn't got a problem. So she tops it up before it ever gets to be empty and lets the bottles she buys get taken away before she can add them up.

She doesn't drink here much anymore. There's no need for backstreet pubs when your boyfriend owns a classy restaurant with free wine on tap. Tonight, she finds it almost comforting. The noise of others around her going about their daily lives with no idea of the anguish she is facing. Fooling her best friend into thinking it was nothing more than a mere disagreement.

So Carla hides away in the booth, glass after glass, bottle after bottle. But she's realising, much like last time, some pains just can't be numbed.

She feels like she is drowning. Like the world could swallow her up and in a heartbeat she would let it just to stop the aching beat thats coursing through her. She doesn't understand how people don't see it. She feels like pains bleeds from her, like it seeps from her very being and that's when she realises, no matter what life really does go on. With or without you.

She knows Nick is furious, she knows it is him pushing through the Rovers doors even before she sees him because she would know his footsteps anywhere. They usually bring her such comfort.

"What the hell are you playing at Carla?" His words taste like anger and disappointment. And worse, she thinks, because they sound like regret.

She ignores him, pouring out the remainder of what is her third or maybe fourth bottle of wine without even a change to her breathing. His presence has no impact on her. At least not one she shows. Not until his hand swipes the drink from the table and glass smashes at their feet. Red wine seeps into the floor like blood from a body and she is almost sick again.

"You knew how much it meant to me for you to be there today. How could you?" He can feel the crowd of people watching them and he hates himself but his hurt makes him angry. How could she be sitting and so calmly drinking. Drinking of all things. She riles him in a way few have ever done before because he loves her so god damned much. But she seems to refuse to be happy and slowly, it is killing him.

Carla can't handle it anymore. She can deal with his anger but the look of desperation in his eyes is only adding to her heartache. She still hasn't spoken as she clambers up, completely unable to stand unaided as she stumbles past him and the bemused bystanders and lets the cold air of the night hit her with a pained sigh.

Her heels make her almost lose her footing as she tries to make a quick get away. At least she blames it on that and not the alcohol she has consumed, her body so unused to even little amounts these days.

Nick doesn't take long to follow and in his sober state he is far quicker than her. That morning, they had been as happy as ever. Cocooned in their own space, in their own flat, their home. Making plans for the day and the week and the month. Being normal, she would call it. He couldn't fathom the change.

"Carla!" She's barely even half away across the road and Nicks anger almost makes him walk away but he never was one for surrender. It only takes one more step in the silence for him to hear her sobs and suddenly, for less than a second, his world stops. "Carla!"

"I lost the baby!" Her scream rings out in the darkness of the brisk night and she somehow manages to sob the words whilst turning to face him and staying a foot. It is the first time she has said the words aloud and it all becomes so real, too heartwrenchingly real all over again.

"You...I-" his mouth is moving but no words seem to leave, at least not in a coherent fashion. He'd spent the day being furious with her as she screened his calls, unable to believe she'd let him down when he'd pleaded with her to be around for his important work event. They both knew it meant so much to him and yet now, it seems like nothing.

"Nick-" his name sounds like a plea as she drunkenly falls into his chest, she is shivering but he doesn't think it is from the cold. "It's not fair. Not again, not us. Not our baby, Nicky. Not us. Not us." Her hand hits his chest in frustration and all he can do is hold her. It's all either of them can do. Her voice is breathless and tear filled and she sounds exactly how he feels.

When he closes his eyes and his own tears fall, he sees everything flash before him and with each reassuring word he mumbles into her hair he sees another of their plans disappear. He tells her it'll be okay but he doesn't believe it. Neither does she.

"Please."

"Please what?" He doesn't possibly understand what she is asking

"It wasn't my fault."

Now he understands exactly what she is asking. She is asking to not be blamed for their death of their baby as if it could ever be her fault. "Please.." She whispers again and he realises he has not answered and then he realises again that he doesn't know how to.

Instead his finger finds her chin, dragging her face up so her eyes are level with his and then let's his lips press a lingering kiss to her head that says so much more than he ever could.

It doesn't dawn on either of them as she sobs and he mirrors her, that they're still in the street. She half falls to her knees and he falls with her if only to catch her. Neither of them let the fear of being seen like this cause them to move because they're too engulfed with grief to notice. So they stay crying in each other's arms on the pavement floor, the music from the pub and laughter occasionally heard but they both know, their lives will never be the same again.

They stay in this position for what feels like an eternity, Nick only moving when he lets one hand slip from her body and find her hand, letting their fingers entwine.

He can't bring their baby back and he can't take their pain away but this time, he can be there for her. This time, he can hold her hand.

And so he does.


	2. Chapter 2

_This was meant to be a oneshot but I had so many lovely reviews/tweets that I couldnt resist! Thank you!_

The steaming coffee seems to burn her throat and insides as though it exists only to highlight the fact she is now empty inside. She manages only two sips before this thought occurs to her and she places the mug back on her coffee table as if it pains her to even look at it any longer.

She doesn't remember getting changed or even how or when they eventually got back to their flat but somehow she is in her tracksuit bottoms and her favourite of Nicks jumpers. He doesn't own many. She knows her hair is up in a band because she cannot feel it irritating her skin and her face feels clean and fresh. She assumes this is down to her boyfriend too but the night is just a blur of tears to her.

Carla vaguely remembers how Nick had undressed her wet clothes once they had escaped the sudden rain and lifted her exhausted body into a hot bath that would have made her cold skin sting if she could just feel anything at all. The smell of her shampoo helps her recall how he had laid her back without a word and washed her hair as though he could wash away their pain.

She doesn't feel drunk anymore and she wonders if it is possible to cry yourself sober. She knows she has barely looked at Nick since they'd gotten home. She knows this because she cannot bare to.

Last time she had lost her baby she'd believed it would be better to go through this with someone that loved her by her side but now she knows how mistaken she was. Because every time she looks at Nick, she sees her own torment reflected in his eyes and to see someone you love in such agony only deepens her own pain. She hates to see him hurting but she is of little comfort to anyone no matter how much she wishes she was. She doesn't realises that just by being there she is a comfort to him. Carla doesn't know that the sound of her breathing calms him slightly because it means he still has her. So he clings to that like she clings to the silence. They take what they can from each other without uttering a word.

Neither of them know how they ended up asleep sprawled across the sofa because they were too drained to make it to their bed and because bed seems of little nessesity anyway. They don't remember how their limbs became tangled and bodies entwined so that it might be difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins, as though to move away from eachother might end in more loss. They don't know how they ended up like that but that is how they stay, sleeping unpeacefully til morning.

* * *

She should have seen this coming. It was silly of her to expect him not to have questions in the harsh light of day but finding words that had any meaning compared to what they had lost felt like an impossible task.

Nicks eyes looked how his voice sounded. Regretful and sorry, as though he had no right to ask when really he had every right. He had been the father to this baby as she had been it's mother. A baby that albeit was not prepared for but was loved as soon as it was acknowledged. Together they'd made plans amongst talks about how scared they were and all the things that could go so right and go so very wrong. He hadn't been there, he hadn't got to say goodbye and they would never, ever get to say hello. Their conversation, their future, was cut short, long before it had properly started.

"I just need to know." His voice cracks and Carla nods, affirming that she knows he needs to know. That she wants him to know. But still, words escape her.

It's not until his hand slides across the bed and entwines with hers that she finds the courage, the will to speak. She knows he remembers their conversation, and she knows he will not blame her. So she tells him as though she is telling a story, as though this wasn't their reality.

"I didn't feel well." Carla shrugs, "I put it down to morning sickness, our Chelle said loads of women still get that after the three months and I thought it were just my luck. Typical me." Her eyes aren't in the room, as though her mind plays out the images of what she is telling.

"Then I went to toilet at lunch and I were bleeding. I was bleeding so much, Nick and then the pain kicked in. The factory were empty and I just, I curled up on the floor and I waited."

Nicks hand squeezes hers and he cannot bare the thought of her lying on some cold, dirty floor, alone, without him. Without their baby.

"Did you know?"

She nods as he expected she would. After all, they have both been here before. "I went to the medical centre when I could drag meself from the floor but they just told me what I already knew. I wasn't good enough last time and I wasn't good enough this time. No one wants to stick around for me, Nick. No one." Of course she is crying and of course he is too but his chest is somewhere she finds comfort these days so she doesn't hesitate or resist when her pulls her in.

"I do." His words are almost lost into her hair and his tears but she catches them just, "I always want to stick around."

His guilt is unimaginable. He hates himself for feeling more pain for this baby than he had the last one he had lost but it is not that he had loved them any different, he just loved what this baby came with more. He loved the family he was creating before it was snatched away but all he can do is hold his partner and hope they can numb eachothers pain.

"I'm so, so sorry Carla."

She simply shakes her head, "Uh uh. Regrets are pointless Nicholas." It's just a whisper but it's so much more.

He holds her still and she holds him back while they cry for their baby, and neither of them count the seconds til they stop.


End file.
